


And Beyond That Lies Nothing

by DoilySpider



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Animal Death (non-graphic), Body Horror (implied), Existential Dread, M/M, Suicide, cosmic horror, eldritch horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:01:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoilySpider/pseuds/DoilySpider
Summary: There is very little space between the word "ineffable" and the word "unspeakable". And if there is a God beyond our universe with a Plan which we cannot know, it stands to reason that there might be something further out, even more unknowable than that.It is getting closer.





	And Beyond That Lies Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> So I was going to write something nice and instead I wrote THIS. But I love horror a great deal and very rarely actually stick my hands into it, so it felt good to play in the sandbox.
> 
> Please mind all the tags and read with care! Thanks.

Serenity was a feeling that wore uncomfortably on Crowley. He wasn’t accustomed to it, and it felt strange to pull it on and clothe himself in it. He’d never known the like of it, not even before the Fall. Heaven, it seemed to him, was a place perfectly designed to engender paranoia. But all of that was a long time ago. Before the Almost End of the World. Before all their ties were cut and he and Aziraphale could finally, simply _be_.

He was starting to get used to it. Cuddled up on the sofa together, Crowley watching TV while Aziraphale read. Crowley ran his fingers idly through Aziraphale’s fair hair without even thinking about it. There was an ease and a comfort that they’d fought so hard for.

“What do you think of a vacation, my dear,” Aziraphale said, dutifully waiting until the commercial break, though he himself did not even look up from his book. “We could go anywhere we want, but we so rarely leave the country.” He cuddled up closer into Crowley’s side. “Seems a waste.”

Crowley nodded thoughtfully. Would be a nice change of pace, to have a few adventures with his angel. Make the most of their freedom. He was right, when neither time nor money nor really most of the laws of physics applied to you, it was awfully foolish to confine yourself to the borders laid by humans. “55 Cancri E is beautiful, I think,” said Crowley. “Made of diamond. Whole world, made of diamond, imagine it.”

“Too hot,” said Aziraphale with a small frown. He thumbed to the next page of his book. “And no food culture.”

“How about Beijing then?”

This got Aziraphale to look up at him, his eyes alight. “Oh, we have to try the Peking roast duck, it’s meant to be amazing.”

“You know, 6000 years on this rock, and never once have I been to Beijing?” Crowley said. “That’s ridiculous.”

Aziraphale sat up a bit straighter, set his book aside. “And they have such lovely teahouses.”

“I think maybe I’d been through once,” Crowley mused. “But it wasn’t habited yet. Doesn’t count, really.” He was caught off guard from his thoughts when Aziraphale placed his fingertips beneath Crowley’s chin to coax his face closer.

“Tomorrow?” Aziraphale said softly.

Dirty trick, using those eyes on him. Aziraphale knew Crowley couldn’t resist those eyes. Crowley sighed. “Yes, tomorrow would be just fine.” Wasn’t as though he had any real responsibilities to speak of. He was just simultaneously exasperated and enthralled to be at the angel’s beck and call.

The other thing Crowley was completely weak to was that warm, sweet smile that crossed Aziraphale’s lips. He only just got a glimpse of it right before they kissed. Crowley snapped his fingers to turn the TV off because he didn’t need it interrupting him while he was trying to savor being close to his angel.

He could’ve gotten used to this, this domesticity.

Imagine a wall. It is a wall in your home. It is pleasant, painted some warm color that makes you think thoughts of safety and warmth and belonging. Maybe it has photos on it of you and your friends and family, or a piece of art you like. Maybe there is an outlet there, where a lamp is plugged to fill your home with light. But it is still a wall, a structure meant to keep the outside out and the inside in. It is a pragmatic truth underlying an emotional reality. You don’t think of the essentiality of the concept of “wall” to the concept of “home” until the wall fails. Imagine a wall. Now imagine when the hole opens up in it, and the flood of insects streams in as you watch, helplessly, and the outside is no longer out, and the inside no longer belongs to you.

That was how Crowley felt when Aziraphale began to scream into his mouth.

Alarmed, Crowley recoiled immediately. He couldn’t see anything wrong, not at first. But Aziraphale’s body had gone rigid. His eyes were wide and rolled up. There was no break nor pause for breath, not that they precisely needed to breathe, but their Earthly forms could certainly know the pain of suffocation.

“Angel? Aziraphale, what’s wrong?” Had he hurt him somehow? It was just a kiss. They’d kissed a great many times, and nothing like this before.

But Aziraphale didn't reply. In fact, Crowley wasn’t even fully sure Aziraphale was aware with him anymore. He was lost in a fugue of… terror? Agony? Impossible to tell from the outside. He was trembling, but only very slightly, as his body seemed locked in its own tension. His wings were half-manifested stretched out behind him, molting feathers and twitching. Tears streaked down his face.

Crowley felt sick, and his heart rattled in the cage of his chest. He took Aziraphale hesitantly by the shoulders and shook him, lightly at first, and then harder. He wanted to snap him out of it. “Aziraphale!” he shouted over his screaming. He hyperventilated, not knowing what the hell he was supposed to say to him to reach him. “Please!”

But it didn’t stop. It didn’t stop. Crowley’s ears were ringing with the sound of it. It had to be hurting him, surely, the endless persistent screeching.

At first, Crowley wasn’t sure he was really hearing it. Maybe it was just an echo, or the ringing in his ears from the shrill sound right in front of him. But no, he was sure. Somewhere past the din of his beloved’s screams, there were more of them. Thousands. Maybe millions. Crowley could hear it through the veils between worlds. It was an angelic chorus. All the legions of the Angels of God, and they were screaming.

With no other recourse left to him, Crowley simply pulled Aziraphale into his arms and held him tight. He rubbed his back, whispered in his ear, “I have you, I’m here, it’s going to be alright,” despite all evidence to the contrary. Whatever was happening, it could not possibly be alright. Honestly he wasn’t sure Aziraphale could hear him. But he kept trying all the same. Had to try. “I love you, I love you so much, I won’t let you go, I’m right here.”

He couldn’t know how long it had lasted. The quality of light in the room had changed. Might have been a whole hour. But finally, mercifully, Aziraphale’s screaming cut off in a hoarse, strangled gasp, and he fainted away limp in Crowley’s arms.

Crowley sniffled, laid him out on the couch. He sat on the floor beside him, stroking his hair, waiting. He’d wait forever if he had to. Always would, for him.

Finally Aziraphale roused with a gasp and a coughing fit. He looked around wildly, visibly disoriented.

Shoulders sagging with relief to see him wake, Crowley shushed him and reached to hold his hand. “I’m here, you’re safe,” he said.

“‘Mnot,” Aziraphale slurred, weakly. His pupils were dilated and he was quivering. “Oh. Oh Crowley.” He squeezed Crowley’s hand tight, took a few deep breaths. Then he turned to his beloved with a weary determination that Crowley had not seen in him since the Apocalypse That Wasn’t. “You have to kill me.”

Dull shock dropped from Crowley’s heart to the base of his gut. “What?”

Aziraphale gave a nervous laugh and sat up on the couch. He pulled in Crowley closer by the hand. “Or… or I could kill you first? And then I could take care of myself. Yes, that would probably be best. Selfish of me to ask you to finish me first.”

Crowley snatched his hand back from Aziraphale’s grip, sick with horror. “What’s got into you!?” he cried. “Why do you think we have to die!? Heaven, angel, we have plans! Are you hurt? What happened, tell me, we can fix it.”

But Aziraphale shook his head firmly, with great certainty. “No we can’t, not this time.”

“We stopped the damn end of the world, might I remind you!” Crowley said. He furrowed his brow and considered this. “At least, we helped. I think we did. Could go talk to Adam about… whatever you’re going through is. Bet he could… do… something…” He trailed off, not really having any sound idea of what that “something” would be.

Aziraphale sobbed, shook his head and wrung his hands.

Crowley leaned in, resting his arms on Aziraphale’s knees and looked up to him, in supplication, almost like a prayer. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

“She’s gone.” There was a hollow in Aziraphale’s voice. A tremor almost like an echo.

“Sorry?”

“She’s gone. I can feel it in my bones. In every inch of me. God is dead, and I don’t… I don't mean that figuratively. God is dead. Something killed her. And it’s coming closer. And I don’t want to be here when it arrives. And I don’t want you to be here either. Because I cannot… I cannot think what will become of us, when the Thing That Ate God arrives.”

The first thing Crowley thought, as he stared not at but through Aziraphale, was that this had to be some kind of joke or trick. But Aziraphale was too soft for tricks like that, especially with no purpose, and his jokes tended to be of the exhausting wordplay variety, complete with a huge self-satisfied smile. No, Aziraphale meant it, for sure. Then perhaps, Crowley thought, this was some terrible thought either Heaven or Hell had managed to put into Aziraphale’s head to punish and torment him. But, then, what of the chorus of angelic screams Crowley had heard far beyond them? What of that?

“No,” Crowley said. He stood up and took his angel firmly by the hand. “You wouldn’t let me give up when the world was ending and I thought I lost you. I won’t let you give up now. We’re going to head to Tadfield. We’re going to get the gang back together. And we’re going to put a stop to this. Again.”

“ _God is dead!_ ” Aziraphale screamed at him, and his voice was shrill and thin from all the screaming before, breaking like glass on the last word. He doubled over coughing again, struggled to wrestle his breath into place. “There’s no planning, no escaping, nothing. None of this, not one shred of it existed before Her. If she’s gone… how can it continue after?”

“A kid doesn’t stop existing if their parent dies.” He tugged insistently on Aziraphale’s hand. There was a fire inside him now, to protect his angel and his world. “Just… please try to keep it together for me just a bit longer. Long enough to make a plan.” Not that Crowley could conceive of where to start a plan to resolve the core problem of the orchestrator of their entire universe ceasing to exist. Metaphors aside, he actually genuinely wasn’t sure how their reality wasn’t already starting to physically unravel in Her absence, if Aziraphale was right. As much as it seemed to pain Aziraphale, Crowley wished he could feel it, that he could have that same certainty instead of this knot of terrified confusion and doubt. But he’d lost the feel of God’s presence long, long ago.

With some coaxing, Crowley managed to herd a reluctant, weakened Aziraphale out to the Bentley. Outside, he saw people scrambling into buildings, abandoning their cars on the street. Crowley’s stomach twisted. So he hadn’t been the only one to hear that chorus of screams, then. Everyone knew something was wrong.

It was hard enough to get around Central London a lot of the time without all the abandoned cars, and the sound of Aziraphale sobbing beside him. Crowley determinedly wove around the obstacles, getting up onto the sidewalk when he had to. There was no one there to obstruct him anyway, convenient as it was haunting.

His focus was cut by a sudden gasp from Aziraphale and a shout of, “Wait, stop!”

Crowley slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt, only avoiding crashing into the car in front of him by believing that he hadn’t. He turned to Aziraphale. “What? What is it?”

Aziraphale pointed.

Following the line of Aziraphale’s arm, Crowley looked out and down the street. He could not for the life of him tell what he was looking at at first. There was some shambling red form, monstrous, dragging itself down the street, heading roughly westward. Crowley leaned forward over the wheel, lowering his shades and squinting.

The form was a man. No, not precisely. In fact, it was Gabriel. He was stumbling along, covered head to toe in blood. His wings were out and dragging behind him. He was clutching at his side, where his arm might be, if it were still there. His whole body was covered in deep gashes and his clothes were in tatters. Crowley’s mouth hung agape at the sight of him; he couldn’t imagine what was keeping him on his feet other than sheer force of will.

Beside him, Crowley heard a click, and he turned to see that Aziraphale had gotten out of the car, and was now running to Gabriel. Well, might as well join him. Crowley took a deep breath, slipped out of the car and scrambled to catch up.

On sight of them, Gabriel collapsed to the ground. He began to laugh weakly. “Of course it’s you,” he mumbled.

Aziraphale knelt beside him. “Were you there? Oh, look at you.”

Crowley wished he could feel sympathy for Gabriel. He’d seen how the archangel treated Aziraphale. He wondered if he would’ve gladly traded places with Aziraphale now without a second thought, whether he would’ve had him bloody and broken instead. Still, couldn’t help but feel a little sick looking at him, feel a bit of instinctual empathetic pain. Gabriel had clearly been through… well, not Hell. Something worse.

“You know?” said Gabriel.

“Of course I know,” said Aziraphale. He pulled a pocket square from his jacket and dabbed at Gabriel’s face. Crowley admired Aziraphale’s tender heart. Even after everything, here he was tending to his fellow angel. “Tell me what happened.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t think I could if I wanted to. If I try to think too hard about what happened, I get this headache and…” He took a shuddering breath and suddenly clung tight to Aziraphale’s sleeve, leaving a red handprint on the beige fabric. “Can you heal me? Please. Listen I’m sorry about the whole… trying to kill you thing. I am. But I can’t die here.”

Crowley didn’t believe for a second that Gabriel was sorry and he didn’t think Aziraphale was stupid enough to believe it either. But that didn’t really matter right now. Crowley looked around the hauntingly empty and silent street. He still had that aching tinnitus from the screaming earlier, and reached up to rub at his temples. It was killing him. “Maybe we should keep moving? Bring him if you must.” Not that he wanted Gabriel in his car, let alone bleeding all over his car, but if Aziraphale was going to surrender to his compassion he could do that while they kept running. If only Crowley knew what they were running to. Or from. He only knew they had to run, the way a rabbit knows when the hawk’s shadow falls over it.

Nodding, Aziraphale helped Gabriel to his feet and together they staggered back to the Bentley. “Can you remember anything at all? I just want to understand what we’re up against.”

With a grimace as he collapsed into the Bentley’s back seat, Gabriel shook his head. “The term ‘up against’ implies a fighting chance. No. God is dead, I know you know that. What else could you possibly need to know. It’s over. Now please, please heal me.”

“If it’s over, what are you even here for?” Crowley said, getting the car rolling. He mounted up onto the curb to get around a roadblock of scattered vehicles.

“Trying to… get to a rendezvous.” He was getting visibly weaker by the second, and the small glints of his skin that could be seen under the red were a ghastly pale. “Trying to meet… someone. Richmond Park.”

Aziraphale was in the front seat but craned around, focused on Gabriel’s wounds. “We’ll get you there.”

“Like Heaven!” Crowley said. “I’m going to Tadfield! We don’t have time for detours!”

“I’m not sure we have time to get to Tadfield,” Aziraphale said sadly. He squinted, clearly straining himself. His hands almost glowed.

But Gabriel was still fading fast in the back seat, struggling for breath.

“Then what the fuck is all this for!” Crowley snarled, grip white-knuckled on the wheel. And yet, in spite of his reticence to the whole notion, he was already hooking around towards Richmond. Because he could never say no to his angel. “What are we even doing?”

“Buying time?” Aziraphale offered, meekly.

Gabriel let out a pained wail.

Aziraphale slumped over the back of his seat. “I’m sorry, I truly am. I’m trying, but nothing’s happening. I don’t understand why it won’t work.”

Gabriel began to sob, gulping and choking, shaking. “No. No no no. Can’t die. Can’t discorporate. Aziraphale, H-heaven is gone. It’s gone. I fought so hard to g-get out. Might… might be the only one. If I discorporate I… I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.” He stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. “There’s nowhere for me to go.”

Gone? The entire Kingdom of Heaven gone? Crowley couldn’t fathom how that was possible. Well, he couldn’t wrap his mind around God being gone either. But along with Her whole realm… it didn’t seem remotely possible. Crowley was very imaginative, but he couldn’t picture it, couldn’t conceive of it, his mind resisted it. How does one picture true, utter oblivion? By its very nature it cannot be pictured. Perhaps that was why Gabriel could not describe it. You cannot, by definition, describe the Platonic ideal of Nothing.

Aziraphale was trembling. He reached to lay a hand on Gabriel’s bloody side, trembling. He took a deep breath and strained himself. But still no healing came to Gabriel’s form. “Trying. I’m trying.”

Gabriel reached into his shredded coat with a shaking hand. He pulled out a large flask, and handed it to Aziraphale. “Take… to Richmond… bench by Still Pond.”

Finally surrendering the effort, Aziraphale took the bloodstained flask and pocketed it. “Alright. I will.”

With a pitiful whimper and a grotesque, twitching shudder, Gabriel died, his Earthly form giving way to particles of light.

There was a silence that hung in the car as Aziraphale stared at the bloodstain Gabriel left behind. “Crowley,” he whispered. “Crowley, music.”

Crowley fumbled for the buttons on the dash as he wove around cars. Pressing several different buttons got no results. But one, one got him the sound of a terrible, distant screaming. Immediately he smashed his hand on the radio to silence it. “Ah… out of luck, I think.”

Aziraphale sat beside him, staring blankly ahead, fiddling with the flask in his hands. Then he began to sob. He hunched over in his seat, looking so small and broken in a way that Crowley had never seen. “It’s not fair,” he whispered. “There was so much more I wanted to do. Together. With you.”

“I’m not giving up yet,” said Crowley but he could hear a thread of frailty starting to weave through his voice. If he didn’t have Aziraphale to look after he would be curling up somewhere having a panic attack right now. No God, no Heaven, and something unspeakable lingering just beyond the veil.

Heh, unspeakable.

Ineffable.

Crowley started to laugh.

Still sniveling, Aziraphale turned to Crowley. “What’s so funny?”

“All that work and that pain to avert the Apocalypse and now we’re here. Nobody’s ever had a Plan that meant a damn! Not us, not Her, not the humans, not anyone!”

“That’s not funny,” Aziraphale whispered.

“You’re right, it’s not!” Crowley said, still laughing, and shaking a great deal, and feeling as though he might throw up at the slightest provocation.

Very gently, Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s leg.

The laughter gave way to weeping. Crowley pulled the car over and slumped over the wheel. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s keep going to Gabriel’s rendezvous point,” Aziraphale offered. He managed a wan smile for Crowley. “Maybe he had some manner of escape plan.”

“To where?” Crowley said, peeking over at him. “I’ve been so stupid. Talking about running, or hiding, or fighting. Saw what good fighting did Gabriel. And if Heaven’s gone, and I mean _gone_ , it’s not just the Earth that’s next, it’s the whole plane of existence, the whole material universe. Oh, my angel, I’ve always believed, I’ve always wanted to believe that everything would be alright as long as we were together but I…” He couldn’t fathom an end to that sentence.

“And we will be together no matter what happens,” Aziraphale said. He leaned in to give him a quick kiss, from which Crowley stole a bit of strength. “Keep driving.”

Crowley nodded. “Right.” He put the Bentley back in gear and made his way toward Richmond. That ringing in his ears seemed to only grow louder, making his head ache terribly. Maybe it was the stress.

It took a while, what with all the obstructions in the road, but they made it to the park. Crowley could swear it should be twilight by now, but the sky stubbornly maintained a dull brightness. They made their way by foot across the grounds. Even the wildlife seemed conspicuously absent. Mostly. They did come across a couple deer who seemed to have dropped dead in the middle of the path with no apparent cause.

On sight of them Crowley crumpled to the ground. The ringing in his ears had become too great to bear. He lay beside the carrion, dry heaving. Aziraphale fell to his knees beside him. At first, he thought it was to comfort him. But then Crowley could see that Aziraphale was holding his ears and tearing up.

A magpie plummeted straight out of the sky beside them and hit the ground with a dull thud.

Crowley sniffled and raised his voice. “You can hear it too?”

Aziraphale nodded, very slightly.

Forcing himself up to his feet, Crowley reached out his hand to Aziraphale. Aziraphale hesitated to remove his hands from his ears, but eventually took it. They held to each other tightly as they made the rest of the way to Isabella Plantation and the pond in question, the nauseating sound permeating the air around them and echoing in their heads.

Now that he knew the sound wasn’t all in his head and his ears, Crowley recognized it didn’t quite sound like tinnitus at all, though it caused a similar buzzing in his mind. No, the tone was different. Still shrill, but…

Before he could put a finger on it, it cut out entirely, leaving the two of them behind in disorienting silence.

Crowley pulled Aziraphale in closer, wrapping his arms around him and looking around wildly at the sky and horizon for answers. “Do you think it’s over?”

“No,” Aziraphale said. He opened his mouth, perhaps to elaborate, but then only shook his head. “Let’s keep going.”

“Right.” Crowley kept one arm draped over Aziraphale’s shoulders as they walked.

Finally, ducking down the pathway through the trees, they came to the little pond. And beside it sat a figure Crowley had truly not expected to see again, especially not know. He frowned. “Beelzebub?” Had the rendezvous been intercepted? Crowley felt Aziraphale tense beside him, and he held him tighter.

“Oh. It’s you.” Beelzebub stood. “You have a way of showing up when things are at their worst, don’t you?”

“What, not going to chastize me for forgetting your titles?” Crowley said, raising a brow.

“Can’t be bothered,” said Beelzebub, batting one of their flies out of their line of vision. “You haven’t seen any trace of the Archangel Gabriel, have you?”

Then this _was_ the rendezvous. Crowley shook his head. “What in the world would Gabriel want to do with you?”

“Worthy opponents,” said Beelzebub with a shrug. “We said, if we couldn’t strike each other down on the field of battle, this would have to do. Knew none of us were going to make it, anyway. Everyone in Hell is still barricaded up, the poor idiots. They think they can keep it out. It’ll just make it worse, in the end.”

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said, eyes cast to the ground. He fumbled in his coat and held out the flask. “Gabriel said to bring this but he… he’s dead already.”

Beelzebub accepted it with a blank-eyed hesitance. “No he’s not. He’ll wish he was, but he’s not.”

“How do you figure?” said Crowley.

“You heard it, yes?” said Beelzebub. “It got louder.” They sighed and reached into their own coat. “Nevermind. Won’t be needing this now. Why don’t you take it?” They revealed then a jar containing a swirling knot of flame. Hellfire. Crowley took it in shaking hands.

The flask, then.

Beelzebub picked up an old coffee cup someone had abandoned in the grass. “I shouldn’t need all of this to get the job done.” With the utmost care and reverence they opened up the flask and slowly, slowly, slowly poured about half of it into the cup. Careful not to let a drop stray, not yet, they handed the flask back to Aziraphale.

Clutching the Hellfire tight, Crowley said, “Why? Don’t you want us to suffer for our transgressions, or what have you? Not very demonic of you to show mercy.”

“Nothing matters anymore and I don’t care,” Beelzebub said plainly. They glanced skyward as the ringing began again. “Good luck.” Holding their cup oh so carefully, they turned heel and stalked off into the trees, presumably to find some quiet and private place to die.

The sky grew brighter then, rather than the inky dark that should be settling with sunset. The whole of it seemed to be a sort of film, stretched thin, and beyond it something flickered. A fire? Or wings?

The ringing. It wasn’t ringing. It almost, almost was like the cacophony of a million screams which rang out in the distance earlier. Only oh so much closer now. And not screaming. Not screaming. It was… singing. Of a sort. A chorus of a million angelic voices all attuned to the same sharp, shrill note, some warbling, some wavering, some hitching, but never faltering or stopping. Voices now not their own.

Crowley choked on a sob.

“Now,” Aziraphale spat. “We have to do it now.”

Crowley could only nod. This was the plan then. The only plan that ever could have been. It was ineffable. Unspeakable. Crowley turned toward the walking path and flung the jar down. The Hellfire erupted in a hungry column of flame. Tears glinting in its light, he turned to Aziraphale. “I… I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you, not this time.”

“You are saving me,” Aziraphale said, with a sad smile. He closed in and kissed Crowley deeply, pressing against him because any amount of space right now was intolerable.

Crowley held him tight, one hand in his hair and the other dug into the small of his back. His angel, his angel. How many times had he swooped in to spare him from some awful fate. And now this was the only way he could help him. He’d think it were some final cruelty dealt to him in his wretched life if he weren’t sure no one was calling the shots anymore. Cruelty has intentionality behind it, after all. There was no more intention for them.

Parting their lips he kept him close for now, in part because he couldn’t bear to let him go, in part because it was getting so hard to hear. “Let’s pretend,” he said, slowly walking the both of them back toward the flame, “that there’s something on the other side waiting for us. An afterlife like the humans got before all this happened. A Heaven just for us, separate from everything. It’s beautiful there.”

Aziraphale wept, following Crowley’s steps perfectly, like a dance. He flinched a bit when he started to feel the heat. “Okay, okay.”

“It’s beautiful there,” Crowley said louder. “Temperate. Lots of green places. A beach with a little cottage. Every book you could ever hope to read and some you don’t. I’ll learn to cook for you, so we can try everything you never got to. Won’t it be lovely?”

“I can’t wait,” Aziraphale said, barely audible now. He lingered at the edge of the fire, pulled out the flask and left it in the grass. “And you’ll be with me.”

“I’ll never leave your side,” Crowley said, never breaking eye contact. “Not for a second. No one will ever be able to keep us apart again. I love you. Don’t be afraid, my darling angel, I’ll be right behind you.”

Aziraphale nodded, once. He was ready.

Crowley scooped one arm up behind his back, held his hand with the other, and walked him back into the flame.

Aziraphale screamed at the top of his lungs for the second time that day. But it only lasted a few unbearable seconds. And Crowley kept him close until there was nothing but ash.

Staggering out the other side, Crowley collapsed into the grass and wept. Well, at least his pain wouldn’t last long either. He pulled himself up to sit, and picked up the flask. Raising it up in a toast to his beloved’s funeral pyre, he whispered, “See you soon.” And he drank down the water. It was cold, bitter cold, and seemed to stab at his insides. Crowley took a deep breath and waited for it all to be over.

The sky overhead seemed to glow as bright as the fire now. The din was unbearable.

And Crowley waited.

The whole world seemed to shake. Not the world, the universe. Rung like a tuning fork slapped against the wall.

And Crowley waited.

Something beyond the sky was visibly writhing, pushing against reality.

And a wretched realization settled over Crowley, crawling all over his skin like the sweat that dripped from the heat.

Hellfire was damned in the name of Satan, who still reigned in Hell, though not for much longer.

Holy Water was blessed in the name of God. A God who no longer lived and whose Kingdom no longer existed. So it meant nothing.

It had no power anymore.

Slowly, Crowley closed his hands over his mouth in rising horror.

The sky tore. Strips and tendrils of something rained down around him, and the tatters folded out of the way of that which now poured into the world, hungry and ready.

And oh, how Crowley screamed.

And then oh, how he sang.


End file.
